


city lights ( you and me are the selfish kind )

by yerimoney



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F, angstangstangst lots of it, can't sleep, fake engagement au, help me with surds, kill me now this is tragic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 21:31:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13960422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yerimoney/pseuds/yerimoney
Summary: back to strangers the next day





	city lights ( you and me are the selfish kind )

"you knew about this," sooyoung echoes to herself, like acknowledging the other person in the room is a burden. joohyun stands there, saying nothing.

"i did," she says, finally after a few minutes. "and i told you already- it wasn't going to be anything serious."

"no," she chokes out. she feels her own nails dig into her palms, trying to convince herself it was real, it was real- _it had to be real-_

"so that's it? you go on, with all your pride and your status, and what am i? your best friend? your best friend, bae joohyun?!" she says, disbelieving. she doesn't even know the right words to say to her- they're both staying where they are, never moving forward. she's almost laughing now at the audacity of it all.

joohyun answers almost immediately, like she prepared for this. "yeah. we go back to our own lives, your dad gets the insurance, and my mom probably stops pestering you. yeah."

she doesn't mention on how they won't sleep in the same bed again, or about the drawer of sooyoung's things in her room. or how they won't go out on coffee dates anymore just for the press to look, and that joohyun won't ever kiss her again in narrow alleys or hold her hand.

sooyoung clasps her hands together, feeling the cold metal of their engagement ring on her ring finger. she turns it, the routine movement calming the mess in her head.

then she sees it, she sees it. a different ring on joohyun's hand, golden and shiny and blinding and it just reminds her of how much she can never be hers-

"seungwan, huh?" she spits. "you're already prepared. you knew, and-"

"and i told you!" joohyun shouts for the first time today, looking at her straight in the eye. "you knew what you were getting into. we knew what we were getting into. i didn't-" she looks away, leaving sooyoung to finish her sentence.

but she doesn't know how to. "you didn't what? tell me what you didn't do, joohyun. discuss it with our parents? check. ask for my hand right in front of the paparazzi? check. heck, you already asked for seungwan's before that. this ring is fucking fake." she takes it off, and she wants to throw it. but her hand won't move no matter how hard she tries, so she just shoves it in her pocket.

"you were certainly all lovey-dovey in public. we're that good at acting, aren't we? aren't we, hyun-ah?"

"don't say that," she hears the older girl say. and it might be her imagination, but her voice sounds thick with guilt (or even worse, regret). "don't say that. you agreed to it first."

"that's because i-" sooyoung can't find the words again. what, because she's seen joohyun cry before? she's kissed away her tears and held her hand on stupid stargazing sessions? that she just wants the other girl to be happy?

that she wants what the other girl says to be true? that joohyun knows her best? that they're spending the days together?

sooyoung's always been too impulsive and too reckless for such a thing. she falls too fast, and she believes too soon. and it's stupid, she's stupid.

but she knows this. she knows that-

"because what? the money? what, you wanted to be part of my fucking family, who won't even look me in the eye? or the publicity, take your pick. how's it like being high class, huh, sooyoung? not living on scraps everyday?" words spill like poison from joohyun's lips, and sooyoung's aware that this must be the meanest she's been. because they swore that they would never let it between them, even when one of them could never pay rent and the other went on formal dinners every weekend.

but she knows it's not true, because- because-

"because i'm in love with you!" she yells, cutting off the other girl's words. and just like the truth stumbles out of the bag, the words start slipping from her lips. "i don't give a fuck about your parents. they don't matter to me. and you- _you,_ it sounds so stupid, my god, it's just that i- i just."

she takes in a shaky breath, holding in her tears. because the other girl isn't saying _anything_ at all, and she looks so blankfaced that sooyoung's almost scared because maybe joohyun really doesn't have anything to say to that at all.

"i've been in love with you since we were sixteen. when your first girlfriend dumped you and we went for a stargazing session. and you just- i didn't look at anything else- and you were just so pretty as we grew up and- and i realized too late. i realized too late," she confesses, and this is the truth- the hard, raw truth with no boundaries and too many obstacles. always too hard to say and yet so easy to explain.

"and i know, i know that given the chance, your parents would have ditched me in a heartbeat if i wasn't helping them in anyway. but that's not why i helped you. i helped you because-" she doesn't know if she should say it again. "because i loved you. i love you. i- you matter to me."

because it feels so terrifyingly right when they wake up together, joohyun's arms wrapped around her. and she feels safe when joohyun laughs. like she's home.

(when sooyoung got the opportunity to kiss the ice cream off her lips, letting out a sly smile while the other girl blinked. "it's for the photos," she said.

it wasn't for the photos. it was for the way joohyun's lips tasted like vanilla and lavender and her. her.)

(when joohyun got down on one knee and started saying a string of words that only made sense to sooyoung. _"i don't think i can ever keep this in anymore," "and i love you. i love everything you've ever done, everything you do and i want to be the one who stays with you whatever happens then.")_

joohyun says her next words, and sooyoung wishes she never said anything at all.

"it doesn't work that way," and suddenly sooyoung has never felt so much pain in her chest, in her palms, and she almost chokes on the sharp intake of breath her body allows.

joohyun remains unfazed. "it doesn't work that way. we're best friends. and-" and it seems like for the first time, she's uncertain. "and best friends don't-"

best friends don't think about each other in the way sooyoung does about joohyun. best friends don't think about kissing each other because they want to. they don't think about marriage. they don't fall in love.

"we're way past that," sooyoung remarks, and it's not supposed to have any bite- it's just the truth. "you know we're way past that."

"tell me you don't look at me and think about me that way," she dares the raven-haired girl. "that you didn't mean what you said in bed. that everything was fake, even when we were already behind closed doors and you kept on the act."

she sees her hand twitch, and she knows. she's gotten past her guard.

she's always been good at doing that.

"i didn't-" joohyun looks away again and shakes her head. "i didn't-"

"you didn't what, joohyun! what's so bad that you can't even tell your _best friend?_ say it. say you didn't mean it."

"i didn't expect to fall in love with you, alright!"

sooyoung loses her voice, and whatever she says is lost to the quiver in joohyun's voice and the way her body shakes.

"jesus, sooyoung, do you even know anything at all? i have a girlfriend. a girlfriend who wanted to marry me as fast as possible just to get her hands on my inheritance. and i-i didn't care, because my parents would only notice me for that. and-"

"and they won't even acknowledge what you do!" sooyoung shouts. "what makes you think marrying will do you any good? they're just trying to push the responsibility and popularity on you."

"and what makes you think you could do this? just walk in and just be so stupid- you made me a fool. you made me so- i never thought before i did things. did you know how scared i was? how much you affect me?" joohyun says. "i did so much for other people, i never thought for myself. and that's what you made me do."

sooyoung could reply, talk about all the times joohyun made her grin and the butterflies in her stomach flutter. and later, when they grew up, how dizzy she felt whenever joohyun joked about being together and when she flashed a smile at her, like they were the only people in the world she could care about.

but that's just staying where they are- saying what they already know.

sooyoung laughs, acting like what they just said to each other doesn't tug at her heartstrings and yet makes her want to scream at how unfair it all is.

"sooyoung," joohyun lowers her volume, so that it's a soft calling.

"shut up," she clenches her jaw and looks down. "shut up."

"sooyoung, i-"

"shut up!" she screams at her. "there's nothing you can do, hyun-ah. it's all- it's all my fault." she doesn't look up, doesn't dare look at her.

she should've known everything in her life would end like this. just enough for her reach and not enough to grasp.

she's done so much. worked extra jobs, taken care of her father, not show anyone the eyebags under her eyes. she's tried to help everyone she could.

and she can't have the one thing she wants.

and suddenly, she feels warmth and arms are on her shoulders, hugging her. "don't cry," joohyun whispers. "it's not worth it. we're not worth it. we can still see each other around, okay? there's nothing wrong with being friends. we don't have to-" she doesn't say anymore.

this feels too nice. it feels too nice, and sooyoung needs to get away, get away from everything that's happening right now (and the only thing that's making sense to her).

"why are you doing this?" she asks. she pulls away from joohyun and almost shakes her off, but the other girl grabs her wrist tight and refuses, simply refuses to let go.

she doesn't say anything as joohyun scans every feature of her face, the grip on her wrist never loosening. and sooyoung can feel a shift in the air, in the way joohyun looks at her, eyes steady but frantic, like- like sooyoung's her destination.

"i want to be selfish for a while." she says slowly. "let me be selfish for a while."

and suddenly joohyun's lips are on hers, and she reciprocates immediately, pulling her closer and kissing back. joohyun's just like she's always been- she kisses with the same gentleness she has this entire time, except this time sooyoung can feel the quiet desperation in it, like it's the last time they'll ever do this.

she doesn't know if someone will barge in anytime, invade their privacy. but right now, she frankly doesn't care. because right now, she can believe joohyun is hers. she can believe that when she wakes up, the older girl will be right beside her. she can believe that joohyun's kissing her because she wants to, and she can believe that they don't need to answer to anyone else.

just them. and it's horribly selfish, she realizes so. because she knows that they're both someone else's, and everything just comes in between- seungwan, social construct, the way joohyun carries herself in front of her parents and the way sooyoung either never thinks before she speaks or just doesn't speak at all.

so she closes her eyes, acts like this is just one of those days when they were in high school and no one questioned them, always just _sooyoung & joohyun, sooyoung & joohyun, _and how they laughed whenever her father made a joke and when joohyun kissed her cheek.

but reality always finds its way to make itself heard, and it's the way the cool metal on joohyun's ring finger burns sooyoung's skin, like a constant reminder that she's not hers to keep. that sooyoung doesn't get to be the one who knows her. so she kisses the raven-haired girl harder, tightening her grip because this seems too much like the end, and she wants to get the most out of it.

somehow they make it to the bed. sooyoung feels her back hit the hard mattress but she tries to not let it interrupt anything, only continuing as joohyun just keeps on kissing her.

maybe it's when she pulls away that she realizes the reality of the situation the same way sooyoung did, slow but sure. that it's very much never gonna work.

maybe that's what joohyun finds out as she stares at her and visibly swallows, placing a hand on sooyoung's cheek.

she waits for her to say something, but she never does. and they just stay where they are, and the younger girl has never been so scared by silence.

joohyun kisses her cheek, soft and fleeting, just skin meeting skin. and she travels down, meeting sooyoung's jawline and ghosting her lips down her neck.

they kiss again. and again. and again, until all sooyoung comprehends is joohyun, and pulls her closer, breathing her in.

it seems too good to be true. and it is. because this is the way sooyoung felt when joohyun cried in her arms when they were sixteen, and it's the way she felt whenever they talked late into the night on the phone or on skype. and it's the way she felt when joohyun said all those things she did at the coffee shop they always went to, a bunch of stupid cheesy lines just for the headlines. but it felt real. and it feels real now.

and it seems like there's not going to be any after this.

it's silent when the older girl finally speaks.

"i love you," joohyun whispers. then she's planting kisses all over her again, everything feverish and rushed. that's when sooyoung realizes that joohyun is shaking, and her movements are too fast to be calm.

joohyun's tears stain sooyoung's shirt as she buries herself into the crook of the younger girl's neck. "i love you," she says again, voice shaky. "i love you."

she repeats this over and over again even as sooyoung holds her (this is too familiar, she realizes). "don't cry," she tells her softly. "it's not worth it."

 _we're not worth it._ because they'll both probably forget about this in a few years, and sooyoung will have found happiness somewhere else. and besides, they never existed- never to anyone else outside of this room, not to their friends, their parents.

(maybe someday, they'll not have existed to each other too.)

when joohyun is done, sooyoung feels the weight of the bed shift beside her. she doesn't turn to see the look on joohyun's face as the raven-haired girl finally admits, "i'm sorry."

it's a quiet confession, almost as quiet as joohyun was just now.

sooyoung hates the truth and how inevitable it is. she wants to pretend, pretend that this is the happy ending and not just the _end._ she wants to have replied, told joohyun _"i love you too,"_ but that's a promise, and there's no promises in this story. just regrets and stupid feelings and them being selfish as they can to the world for a few minutes.

and they're not very good at keeping promises anyway. so what's the difference?

"stay with me," she breathes, running her hand through raven locks.

"okay," joohyun promises almost immediately. but the hesitation in her words just shows how much of a lie that is. and they both know it.

she falls asleep, wishing she never knew what came next.

...

it doesn't take her a second to figure that joohyun's gone when she wakes up, with all the empty space in her arms and the cold air against her cheek.

she closes her eyes, falling back to sleep.


End file.
